The people are fed up. They have had enough, and they are making their voices heard.

The gilets jaunes ('yellow vest') protests against excessive taxation without representation that have erupted across France over the last month are now spreading to different parts of the world. Recently, there have been similar demonstrations in other European countries, including Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, the UK and Sweden.

Partially inspired by the mass uprising of the people in France, residents of Grande Prairie, Alberta, held a large public demonstration in a downtown park last Sunday. The event was billed as a "pro-pipeline rally", and was coordinated in response to the Canadian government's inept handling of, and interference with, four different oil pipelines that were slated to bring Alberta oil to the world market.

The failure of the government to oversee the successful implementation of even one of the proposed pipelines have lead to record low prices for Canadian oil, with devastating results to the local industry and economy.

The RCMP estimated that "at least 1,500 people showed up" at the rally, but some organizers at the event pegged the numbers of attendees at around 4 - 6 thousand, a historic record for this small city. The gathering was followed by a 600-700 long rig truck convoy that paraded its way through the city, snarling local traffic for over 90 minutes.

In addition to showing support for Alberta's oil and gas industry, the protestors made known their grievances against many of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's globalist progressive policies, including his punitivecarbon taxin support of the myth that is 'man-made global warming'; hispro-immigration,UN-sponsoredopen borders policy; and an endless litany of overwrought public apologies to any supposedly marginalized group that Canada as a country has offended or mistreated at some point in history.

The province of Alberta, with abundant wealth generated by its 3 major industries (agriculture, forestry, and oil & gas) arguably serves as the primary economic engine of the entire country, and is responsible for billions of dollars of equalization transfer payments to other less wealthy provinces annually.

It's no wonder that the hard-working people of Canada's formerly richest province took to the streets in protest as they watch their once-wealthy and powerful oil and gas industry become decimated by the illogical, misguided, shortsighted pandering of a virtue-signalling buffoon in fancy socks appeasing his globalist handlers. One would be hard-pressed to find a group of Canadians more justifiably angry, upset and disgusted with their so-called leader than the residents of this small northern community.

Since the demonstration in Grande Prairie, other similar demonstrations have taken place in other parts of the province, includingCalgary,NiskuandEdmonton- with more being planned.

And residents of Alberta aren't alone in voicing their opposition to Trudeau's heavy-handed policies: Yellow Vest protests are now occurring incities across Canada. Over the weekend, protesters in several Canadian cities - including Winnipeg, Toronto, Halifax, and Saskatoon - organized through Facebook and other social media sites then go out on the streets and donned yellow vests.

A Facebook event page titled 'Yellow Vest Canada' already has more than 73,000 members. Other local pages, such as 'Yellow Vest Toronto', have also been created.

The national page's description reads:

"This group is to protest the CARBON TAX and the Treason of our country's politicians who have the audacity to sell out OUR country's sovereignty over to the Globalist UN and their Tyrannical policies."

Needless to say, the spread of this patriotic movement among the working and middle classes into countries of the anglosphere has sent the globalist-liberal media into panic mode:

With extra dollops of 'right-wing populism', no less!

On the one hand, this expression of mass dissent against the elitist ruling class - not only in Europe, but now also in north America - is a positive sign for common people everywhere, for they are beginning to realize how much power they have to effect change when their voices are united against useless and corrupt governments who put their own selfish interests ahead of those they were elected to represent.

On the other hand, as we saw in the reaction of the 'democratic' French state, other governments will also likely turn the protests against them violent in order to justify further violence through crackdowns and vilification of the protesters in the media. And how much abuse will people take before the government-caused violence 'breaks out' and becomes fully-fledged revolution? I'm not certain that this is how things will go down, but that is the way the wind has blown in similar historical circumstances...

A longtime contributor to Sott.net, Timothy C. Trepanier received his degree in Pharmacy from the University of Alberta and is a former owner of the Rabbit Hole bookstore in Grande Prairie, Canada. He's retired and living on an acreage with his beautiful wife, Miss Pearls the cat, Banjo the dog, and five suspicious chickens.

Reader Comments

It may end up as the haves against the have nots. It would be easy to pick them out in the crowd, unless they become part of the mob. What, they are about 1 or 2 percent of the population. Probably even old Hillary would try to get on the have not bandwagon.

There seems to be a deep undercurrent at work here. More and more people are rejecting globalism, because they know it is a scam, and it hurts communities in very real ways, all for a farcical ideology.

Open borders? LOL. It is really difficult to enter Canada as an immigrant. They demand you have a lot of cash in bank, high qualification, clean criminal record, tons of bureaucracy, interviews - a very intricate process in which they review your life with a magnifying glass. At least that is true for all Latin Americans that apply for immigration. In the end, Canada ends up winning and Latin America losing because our most qualified people (think engineers, doctors, scientists) go to Canada where they contribute to economy and society. It is certainly a lot more easy to enter Europe than Canada... there is no such thing as "open borders". Gross misrepresentation of reality.

Icarus I personally know one person who is a medical doctor and is currently undergoing the process of immigration. It takes months. All her documents regarding studies at the university are being translated and the Canadian government does not accept Brazilian translation of document, it is all being translated by a Canadian translator appointed and trusted by the government... that, among several other things a candidate needs to go through to earn a visa!! I'm not saying that is wrong or a bad thing. On the contrary, I think it makes sense. But the article claiming there is an "open borders" policy is very misleading!!!

Icarus "It is really difficult to enter Canada as an immigrant. They demand you have a lot of cash in bank, high qualification, clean criminal record, tons of bureaucracy, interviews - a very intricate process in which they review your life with a magnifying glass."

What you are describing above is accurate in regards to the "legal immigration process" that people from other countries must adhere to in order to be accepted in to Canada. This is the way it should be handled. And that was the case, up until Trudeau's rash and poorly thought out tweet in response to Trumps proposed temporary immigration ban of people from certain muslim countries, where he openly invited pretty much anyone into the country regardless of personal situation.

Since that time hundreds, if not thousands of illegal immigrants (now renamed "irregular border crossers" by the government and mainstream media) have crossed the border into Canada from the US at Roxham road in Quebec, where they are helped across by members of the RCMP who often carry their luggage for them!

There is a video documentary published last spring that shows exactly what is happening there.

Tim Sorry, I did not know about that. I think immigration from muslim countries is a problem because Islam os not compatible with non-muslim societies... for one thing, they are intolerant towards women, LGBT community, atheirsts that Trudeau seesm to care about, and also towards Christians... However, one thing must be said: If Canada does not like middle eastern immigrants, it should think twice about supoorting the US war machine that cannot stop bombing, invading and regime changing Middle Eastern and other countries (like Libya)!! This includes military or diplomatic/political support to such wars of aggression.

Is any wonder that people in Canada, are rejecting the policies imposed upon them by a leader, like Trudeau, that has no real political focus, the realities of the people under which he governs are just graphs and POP polls, and biased political advisors...MO.

He is governed by an ideology, that is alien to most people in Canada,who live their lives, go to work, and hope that the government that they elected into power would also think and feel the same way.

This has turned out to be a rather bizarre display of post modern ideology, something that most Canadians don't have a clue about, and are wondering, why the leader they elected is behaving and focusing on policies that seem to them irrational.

And boy have the Canadian people been duped by a fresh looking face, that his only claim to fame, is his father.

A good looking, smart talking (well maybe not) puppet made for the 21st century...just right to present a globalist agenda....Hmm...Macron comes to mind.

Is it any wonder people are out on the streets protesting, the government they elected are divorced from the real needs of the people.

Is it real? An outgrowth of frustration feeding off of the usual Justinian libtard fantasies? Is this the spread of a virus from France? Where Soros type inspired revolts were started but seemed to have gotten out of control?

Really good article Tim, thanks! I see a lot of people bemoaning the growing skepticism in Canada against immigration. Often they just bemoan it as of racist origin, with no attention given to the increase in illegal immigration more or less directly facilitated by the Canadian government in Quebec, to say nothing of public announcements of ex-ISIS fighters being openly admitted into Canada with the goal of "integration." I feel like this is something Canadians need to be having a more candid conversation about, and those who are pro-multiculturalism should know better than to just smear the opposition.

'Bout time. This Yellow Vest thing needs to rise to epic levels, enough so that the nest of vipers inhabiting the government halls everywhere are swept out--a modern form of storming the Bastille. It just as well be this if we're all headed for neo-feudalist poverty. Personally, I'm exceedingly weary of people entering the poll stations voting for the "lessor of two evils" mentality. Its still evil and doesn't get to the root.

At the very root of gov't malfeasance is the money question, and that's what needs to be addressed. The USofA was founded on that debacle, and the war fought over "regaining" control of their money (not "freedom" or "unrepresented taxation" as we were lead to believe in school). The implementation of that farcical document, the Federal Constitution, was intended to specifically address their mishandling of money, and look where it has taken the world. It is an entitlement document for the merchant/business class who have been sucking at the gov't teat ever since. Meyer Rothschild knew human nature very well--they can be lead about by the pocket book to do anything they please. This plundering by a few wealthy elites isn't going to end until people everywhere come together on the money issue, not just putting them to pasture, but grinding them to powder, metaphorically speaking.

What if protesters start throwing bombs of yellow paint onto the police and across the streets of Paris and Canada (then spreading to the U.S. and elsewhere) whether using paint buckets or water balloons filled with paint or paint guns or plain old paint brushes?

It would be a creative, non-violent and relatively cheap approach that would effectively transform the cops into Yellow Vests, whether they like it or not. It might even become difficult to visually sort out cops from protesters.

In other words, this tactic would literally bring out the truth that the police, military, protesters (and the buildings surrounding everyone) aren't truly divided because (in truth) we're all united in being exploited by globalists.

But, oh my, would that be a "dirty tactic?"

For what it's worth, it sure would seem to beat the "clean" and "100% legal" tactics of using ear gas, billy clubs, guns, guillotines, tanks and hypothetically, god knows what sort of false flags might be on the docket as this situation escalates.

Besides, tell me the globalists don't weaponize every last atom available to them to literally realize their intentions?

When viewed from that perspective, paint seems like a rather... quaint, artistic approach. I mean, hey, the globalists love their fake "Color Revolutions," so... I can't help but wonder if people might give them a literal color revolution, one that even the mainstream media would have trouble washing away with selective editing?

Why, it even could be seen as a benevolent act. After all, per the "global meaning" of international signage, yellow is the color that represents "Warning!," and so isn't it only fair that the protestors give a fair warning to the 1% or what might lie ahead?

At the very least, it makes sense that protesters would splatter yellow paint across every last government or corporate surveillance camera. Meanwhile, if things get ugly enough, I can envision the protestors painting traffic lights, traffic lanes, and so forth, which might eventually force the city/countries to come to a dysfunctional standstill unless the needs of the people aren't addressed.

Mind you, I'm not saying that I'm in favor of anybody actually doing these things, since I'd never incite a riot. Gosh no.

However, it just seems to me that eventually someone will think up these sorts ideas, or worse (I'm sure that I'm not the first persona to imagine such things, since governments are on record for actually paying people to think up horrible things, from terrorist campaigns to thermonuclear war).

But, gee, I sure hope nobody would ever actually put this into action.

"Hey everybody, let's get really pathetic and go protoest for the oil companies. Always the friends of regular people. And we're such a miserable bunch that we can't think of anything else to be busy doing. So, let us cheer the looters, the parasites, the polluters, who milk us like cows and will pitch us overboard according to their profits. Yup, that's what passes for compos mentis in Alberta"